Dream
by The Honest Politician
Summary: A glance into the life of Severus Snape. A journey. [Semispoilers for DH, Snapecentric]


* * *

**dreams **

* * *

It was a very dreary, very English Sunday. The namesake of the day was hidden behind gloomy gray clouds, and the ground was splattered with alternating pieces of shadow and darker shadow. The breeze was infinitesimally small, and the air was tepid and somehow Severus could feel something changing in the sky. A storm would blow in soon, a big one.

The chain link fence beneath the board on which the small sallow boy was perched was orange and rough with rust. It rattled ferociously when he kicked against it, and the board wobbled, and he took small pleasure in knowing that he was intelligent enough, agile enough, to balance it just right.

The gate out of sight on the other side of his house squeaked loudly, and he knew that someone was coming into the backyard, although he couldn't tell who it was. The overgrown thistles netted the person for a few minutes before they blew past them, whisking the poor branches out of their way with a slightly impatient hand. It was her, then.

Sure enough, she stepped out into the yard a few moments later. He wondered idly, as he did every time she arrived here (she usually came without notice) whether he ought to clean up; judging from the look on her face at the moment, she wouldn't care...she maybe wouldn't even notice. Her fresh eyes swept over the broken table and decrepit lawn chairs without even pausing to take them in, probing the yard until she found him.

She wrestled her way through the thorns and weeds and high grass until she reached him and his board and his bizarre little ladder. She didn't stop and tell him how foolish he was, how dangerous that fence and board were, like his mother. She didn't tear him down from his safe little loft and beat his heart and body to pieces, as his father did. No, instead, she climbed up the ladder and sat beside him, two children precariously perched upon a board.

As her red hair fluttered in the wind, the silence between them was one of understanding.

She was just like him.

* * *

The bruises from last night were there still.

Last night, his father had come home from a three-day drinking spree, stone sober and reeking of a whore's perfume. His mother hadn't said anything; instead, she let her husband talk, let him rage. He screamed and cursed at her until veins popped in his neck, until his cheeks were red and his eyes bulging from their sockets in his anger.

And then she told him she didn't care.

After all these years, didn't she know better? After all these years. She should know. He was more dangerous angry than he was drunk. When he was drunk, he would only be able to hit her half the time, with half the force of a real swing. When he was angry, he was alive and livid and very very powerful, and Severus wondered, not for the last time, if this kind of thing was not more powerful than magic.

And he had hit her and screamed and hit her some more, until she fell to the ground. Then he kicked her. And Severus, stupid stupid stupid Severus, had not been able to watch the woman who bore him have such terrible things inflicted on her anymore. He had jumped in front of his father's large, booted foot, and he had taken it in the mouth. It was a miracle he had not lost any teeth, but his gums were torn and bleeding (now, the morning after, they were green).

And then his father's fist became his world, as they rained down upon him like the storm that had come in the night. Poor little Severus cowered under his father's rage, but he had learned something from Lily, something his mother had never learned: sometimes, you must acknowledge your losses, because it is easier to bend than to be broken.

And so when his father asked him if he had as smart a mouth as his mother, he didn't answer (he couldn't speak from the pain), but he shook his head. _No._

And Tobias left his son alone then, tramping out through the front door, the flimsy screen slamming shut in his wake...or perhaps it was the howling of the storm. Severus didn't know.

And then, when he was gone, his mother crawled to his side and gathered him up in her arms. She carried him to his bed and cleaned up his wounds there, but she couldn't heal them with magic, because Tobias had taken all of the magic out of her, she said, looking very sad. So she cleaned them with peroxide and wrapped them in some clean linen from her job at the factory, and she held him close to her, snug against her lap.

It was then that she whispered those wonderful stories of Hogwarts into his ear, late at night when his father was not there to hear them, was finished hurting them, for a while, at least. It was then that she told him of Gobstones and gargoyles and dungeons and brooms and Quidditch and the Great Hall and the four houses, of which Slytherin was always the best.

And Severus, hurting and crying, dried his tears and wiped his mind of the feeling of pain, at least for that moment. Those moments were precious to him; he loved that world, he wanted that world, because then he could finally be _someone_ besides "the Snape boy from Spinner's End."

And in the morning, he would go to see her, creeping into her backyard as she had crept into his, while her parents were at work and Tuney was out flirting with boys twice her age. And she would see him and smile that sad little smile of hers, and she would heal him and he would tell her the stories that his mother told to him.

He could tell her about his dreams of being someone because she wanted to be someone too.

* * *

"Tuney got a letter today."

"...Okay."

"It was from Albus Dumbledore."

"...Lily, that's impossible."

"I know, Sev, that's what I thought, but I looked at the envelope when I went to get the post for Mum this morning and it said, 'To Petunia Evans, 368 Fern Street, Little Whinging, Surrey,' and 'From Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster'. I don't know of any other Albus Dumbledore, though maybe you do, Sev."

"Now you're just teasing."

"A little."

"...It couldn't have arrived by owl. They must have people in the post office who handle that sort of thing...wizards from the Ministry."

"I wonder why on earth he would write to Tuney."

"I dunno. I'm curious now, though. D'you think we could get to the letter?"

"Sev! It's up in her room, and I'm not going to go poking around in my older sister's things, even if I _am_ curious."

"Li-ily, come on! It's from _Albus Dumbledore!_ It could have something to do with you!"

"...with me?"

"Yeah! Petunia knows where you're going, she could've written to see what the place was like, how they would treat you! So you see, it's like you're _entitled_ to know!"

"...Don't try to trick me, Sev. It won't work."

"...Okay, fine. But at least read it with me? Then we can both get over it and there'll be no more dying of curiosity."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"Do I _look_ like a cat to you?"

"...Okay."

* * *

Lily had been crying earlier, in that compartment with those horrible boys. Severus could tell, because those lovely green eyes were somehow darker, shining brighter than usual. They were slightly red and barely puffy, and he didn't know that Petunia would react so strongly to Lily reading her mail (and to the rejection) that she would call her beloved little sister a _freak_.

But now she had him by the hand and was dragging him down the corridor hastily, peering into separate compartments occasionally, until she found one that was empty, save for a pale, peaky boy, curled up reading in a corner.

Lily opened the door and pulled him in, and as they sat down she let go of his hand, and it felt rather empty without hers in it. She appeared to have the same feeling of loss, for her small hand crept back into his larger, paler one. "Sev...you can't listen to what they say, they're just bullies, like Richie and Andrew in the schoolyard back home. You ignored them just fine!"

"Yeah, until they beat me black and blue."

"But this is _Hogwarts_, Sev. You know that they won't let that happen! _I_ won't let that happen."

He smiled at her.

She smiled back, settling back into her seat. "Tell me again what the Great Hall looks like?"

And he allowed himself to sink into his mother's familiar words, to build the Great Hall himself with his words, intent on describing everything to Lily. His eyes, though he did not know it, were bright and happy, twinkling like the most precious of stars.

Lily knew it, though. Lily saw, and Lily remembered, and years later (though she did not know it then) she would need that memory.

* * *

Snivellus. Snivellus, Snivellus, Snivellus.

Even now, even at night, curled up in his bed, far far far away from that damn Potter boy, Severus still heard the jeering chants and gibes ringing in his ears. He could still feel the burning sensation in his cheeks, the intensity of his embarrassment. He could smell the mud that was flung into his face, taste it as it flew into his mouth -

And Lily, brave, beautiful, _wonderful_ Lily - she defended him. She threw mud right back, with a perfect eye, nailing Potter directly in that ugly, smug face of his. He and that blood traitor Black had scattered, and they hadn't jeered anymore. Severus would not cry as Lily mended his scrapes and bruises, so she cried for him, her salty tears scattering over his freshly mended skin.

She held him close as his mother used to and she cried because he couldn't.

* * *

Potions was a wonderful class.

Snape had discovered his aptitude for it sometime last year, quickly amending potions according to his instinct, adding different stirs, different ingredients, and his potions were always the best.

Gryffindors were partnered with Slytherins in Potions, and although this meant seeing Potter and Black every class, it also meant that Lily could be his partner, and she was always quite frustrated whenever Severus varied from the book's instructions. After two or three obvious successes, however, she dubiously joined him, adding some marvelous, ingenious suggestions of her own. When asked, she told him that she liked to cook.

He had rolled his eyes at that, and she had poked him in the side, where she knew he was ticklish. He bit his lip to keep from laughing, and glared at her. She smiled.

Potions was when the bonded the most. In that dungeon, amid the fumes and talk and bubbling ingenuity of potion-making, they became closer friends than they had ever been in Little Whinging.

When Lily remarked on this, she told him teasingly that maybe there was something in the fumes.

He had shaken his head and laughed, ignoring the looks shot at him by Gryffindors and Slytherins alike.

* * *

Third year was hell.

Gryffindors and Slytherins had Potions separately this year due to staff changes, and most of his fellow Slytherins would have nothing to do with him. They kept firmly away from him, choosing not to associate themselves with _that half-blood _or _that Mudblood lover_. He was the freak that hung out with Gryffindors, a fluke of the sorting hat, someone who should've ended up in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw or for the love of god Gryffindor - anywhere but Slytherin.

There were a few people that would talk to him, though. Avery and Mulciber, they would talk. They would come sit beside him in Potions sometimes, whispering to him beneath the cover of the fumes. _We'll protect you from the others if you tell us how you pass_. And so he did. He sold his secrets for protection from those who should have been his peers.

And after a while, whether it was the fumes or the company, Severus began to _change_. He no longer sought Lily out at every break, leaving her to seek him. He no longer cowered whenever a Slytherin looked at him differently. He laughed nastily with Avery and Mulciber and sometimes Malfoy, when he would seek the three of them out in the common room in the evenings. He would speak, as they did, in hushed tones, about the Dark Lord, and the purest blood, and the preservation of the Wizarding World.

Sometimes as Severus lay in bed at night, those taunts would come back to him. _Snivellus, Snivellus, Snivellus._

And he would roll over a set his head firmly against the pillow. He no longer wanted Lily to cry for him.

* * *

Fourth year was both better and worse.

He had Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts with Lily this year. They sat next to each other at the beginning, talking and joking like old friends. Gradually, however, conversation ran dry. Ideals and dreams they had shared for years were no longer up for discussion, as they no longer existed in the both of them. They never spoke of their childhood together, or their summers at home.

Then, sometimes, Severus would already be sitting with his new Slytherin friends when Lily came into the room. Those beautiful green eyes would search him out, and she would smile and wave, and he would give a very very small wave back, and his friends watched with disapproval.

They cornered him in the common room that evening as they lay about aimlessly. They questioned him about it, telling him that she was a Mudblood, a filthy, worthless Mudblood, and he knew it, so why did he even bother with her anyway?

And Lucius Malfoy heard, and he took Severus aside. She's certainly a beautiful girl, Snape, he had said, his eyes glinting strangely in the firelight, but she's _beneath_ you. She's not of our kind. She wouldn't see the vision that you see, she's too naive, too simple-minded.

And like poison, the older boy's words seeped into his mind and stayed there. He began to view Lily through somewhat condescending eyes, although he did not realize it, began to talk with her less and less about hopes and dreams but more about practicalities and everyday things. He began to ignore her opinions, to get into little fights with her more often.

One day, when he told her that she couldn't possibly understand his dream, she was too different, she had stood, cold fury glaring in those beautiful eyes.

_I'm not the one who's changed, Severus_, she had told him, gathering her books and storming out.

She doesn't understand.

* * *

"I don't need help from a filthy little Mudblood!"

Oh god. Oh god god god god god, he had said that. Those words, reckless and violent and angry, he come from _his_ mouth, from _his _mind. The mind he had so much pride in, the mind that had been open and caring and very much aware of the world had suddenly become a very narrow, shallow, dark place, where he rarely dwelled anymore.

Dangling upside down, soap suds hanging from his mouth, at the mercy of his most loathesome enemies, he had been defenseless, alienated, lost. And she, Lily, had come to him, despite all of those snide comments about her being too young, too naive, to closed-minded to understand his dreams. She had stood there and threatened a member of her own house, had stood there, offering him a hand, a heart, a mind, and he had -

**_filthy little Mudblood! _**

Oh, how those words rang in his ears. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her standing there, her stance shifted into one of defense, her eyes holding such pain, such sorrow, oh, he could see, she didn't understand, she didn't know why he had done this to her, _all she had wanted to do was help this whole time and he pushed her away - !_

And she had been right. It was not she who had changed. He had changed into something horrible, something cruel and evil and something that was not Severus Snape.

As he stood outside of the Gryffindor common room, waiting for her to come out, he wondered what he would say. He wondered if, when he looked in the mirror, Tobias would be staring back at him. He wondered how much better Lily was than him. Light years better.

And she came out, her eyes red and puffy, her cheeks stained with dull tear tracks. And they spoke, and he tried to explain, and she didn't forgive him, she showed him what he'd become, what he was going to be, all because of one year, one not-really-friend, one stunning moment of stupidity.

And she went back inside, and everything was over, life and love and soul and heart, except it wasn't. It felt like it should be. His heart was unbearably aching, and it was then that he knew why he had watched her so. It was not because they grew up together. Not because she was his friend.

He loved her.

And as he sank to the floor, he could not know, could not _possibly_ know, that upstairs in the girls' dormitory, little Lily Evans was sobbing into her pillow, lost in memories of that boy on the train five years ago, lost in the memory of the happiness in his eyes.

* * *

Sixth year was unbearable.

Potter and Black were intolerable, Lupin did nothing, Pettigrew laughed along with them. Avery and Mulciber and Lucius and the Carrows were his friends now, and when he saw Lily in the halls, in class, when he tried to get her attention, she ignored him. She turned her back on Severus Snape, and every time something inside of him died, and he wondered what it was and how long it would take for it to die and be gone forever.

If only he knew.

* * *

Seventh year. Graduation. Flowers and families and speeches and awards and laughter and whispers and reminiscing.

Severus wanted that. He wanted to stand with Lily, to have his arm around her waist, to laugh with her and remember. But he couldn't, because now she hated him and now someone else's arm was there, she was hung up on Potter's arm and she shouldn't be there because he didn't deserve her.

Severus didn't deserve her either, and he knew it, but how was it fair that James, James who always won, good-looking, smart, popular James Potter, got the one thing Severus had ever really loved?

How was it fair?

* * *

Being a Death Eater was unbearable.

He did not want to live as he was living now, and yet he did not want to die, so he stayed with Avery and Mulciber and Lucius and the Carrows and all of his new companions - he dared not say friends, not after fifth year - and he lied and cheated and tortured and twisted, but he would not kill. No, not he.

His parents were both dead, now, his mother having died of old age. His father had died the summer he turned sixteen, drowned in a lake on his way home from a tavern. He didn't know how to feel now that he had lost his mother, his one constant. He had no one to turn to: his fellow Death Eaters were devoid of sympathy, and Lily was lost to him forever.

He had seen it in the paper yesterday: the Evans-Potter wedding. Today, Lily would become Mrs. James Potter. Today, Lily would not be his Lily anymore. She could not be, because his Lily would never marry that horrible person, could never love the man who had tortured and hurt Severus more than he had hurt anyone in his life besides Lily. She wouldn't...she couldn't.

But she was.

Severus could feel his heart breaking, even as he pulled that white mask over his sallow face.

* * *

He was shaking, trembling so violently that he felt he would die. Albus Dumbledore sat across from him in the Hog's Head, staring at him with those impenetrable blue eyes, the twinkle gone from them. Severus's hands were held together in some kind of rigor mortis grip, his knuckles white with the strain.

"Please," he begged, breaking the uncomfortable silence, "you must protect her. He is going, he suspects her, he will not spare her, I know it, please help her...save her."

"And as always, Severus, you care not for the lives of her husband and child. They are alive, too, and no matter how much you hate James, I am certain that you would not, in truth, wish death upon him. Surely you know that either of their deaths would break Lily's heart."

"She would not shed a tear for me, now," he said, his voice bitter, his eyes stinging as they had not done since he was very small. Lily was not here to cry for him anymore.

"You may believe what you wish, Severus; I, however, know that Lily still cares for you. She asks about you, and though I haven't the heart to tell her what you've become, she is a rather intelligent young woman. She knows without being told these things."

Severus laughed, his throat clenching around the sound, choking him. "You try to deceive Lily? She was...is...the most perceptive person I know. Even the most skilled...the best Legilimens...could hide nothing from her."

"You know her well."

"...We grew up together."

"Ah, yes. In that dear little suburb of Little Whinging, I had nearly forgotten. So tell me, Severus. You care for Lily Potter, a Muggleborn woman. A Muggleborn woman who married your worst enemy and bore him a son."

"Nothing...nothing could..." His words were tight, coiled like springs, and he couldn't say anything more.

But Dumbledore understood.

* * *

She was gone...

Because she had trusted too much. She had believed that a friend's word could save her, could keep her safe, and what happened? Why? Why did she have to die? She could have lived, she could have been spared...

_But would she be happy? _

The thought entered his mind unbidden, unwanted, and he could not shove it away. Lily would never have wanted to live while those she loved died. She would never have loved you as you love her. She would not have been happy to be alive while her son and husband lay dead and cold in the earth. She would waste away.

And he knew it.

For the first time in eleven years, Severus cried.

* * *

It hurt.

That first night, eleven years later, after the sorting. After Harry Potter's name had been called. After he had been placed in his parents' house. And the boy had looked up so suddenly that Severus had no time to turn away, and he saw there what he had been longing to see again since fifth year: Lily's eyes, unclouded by anger. Lily's eyes, so wide and open and trusting. Lily's eyes.

And then he looked away, because the eyes burned him, as though to say _You would have let my son die._

Severus wished he was dead, dead like Lily, because then he couldn't see those eyes anymore.

* * *

The boy was a fool, as useless as his father.

That was what he told himself as he paced his study that night, books strewn everywhere, parchment half-unrolled, pictures littering the ground. The fire was burning low, and he was certain all of this pacing was wearing holes in his threadbare rug.

But the boy was not his father.

If anything, he was his mother.

Lily. Lily, Lily, Lily.

* * *

This was the end, then. The end of the lies, of Dumbledore's traps, of plans and conniving and hiding and trickery. This, this insufferable pain, would be the last thing he ever felt, the sight of his own blood on the floor of this horrid room the last thing he ever saw. He had failed: failed Dumbledore, failed Harry, failed Lily. It was fitting he should die by the bite of a snake; the Slytherins, snakes themselves, had truly killed Severus twenty-four years ago, in third year, when he left Lily behind.

He did not want to see this blood, the snake, this floor. Voldemort swept from the room, the snake following, the Elder Wand in his grip. He had lost. Dumbledore had lost. It was over.

And yet...

Something shimmered in the air in front of him, and then he was there - Harry, the Potter boy, _Lily's son_ - and he was standing beside Severus, and he leaned down, and Severus grabbed him, because he was dying and there was still a chance that he would not fail at something in his life -

"Take...it... Take...it..."

And with the last of his efforts, he pushed the memories out, everything everything everything, falling out of his empty shell of a body and into the glass beaker that was suddenly in Harry James Lily's hands and his grip was fading but he hadn't failed and he

"Look...at...me..."

And arms were around him, and he looked up, and the eyes that he saw were Lily's eyes, and he sighed and then -

He was gone.

* * *

_There was nothing but white here...white, and a different mindset, of course. _

_And then there was someone else there, someone new and yet not new at the same time, and he knew her - _

_"Hello, Severus." _

**_Lily... _**

* * *


End file.
